All Posts Tagged With: "G20"

Student unions pour money into political causes that many members don’t even know about, let alone support

The story made headlines everywhere: it was Feb. 11, 2009, and Daniel Ferman was a member of Drop YFS, a group dedicated to overthrowing the York Federation of Students. Drop YFS was presenting a petition with 5,000 signatures—enough to stage a coup of sorts. They were protesting the student union’s support for a teachers’ strike, which would potentially leave students on the hook for missed class time. They were also against the union backing the Israeli Apartheid Week, which many pro-Israel students despised. As the press conference began, Ferman and his fellow Drop YFS members were faced with a crush of student union members who came in to denounce the petition rally. After a volley of shouting, the crowd moved to the Hillel student lounge where some of the Drop YFS members took refuge. “Students were barricaded in the lounge,” says Ferman, who was Hillel @ York’s president at the time and helped organize the Drop YFS effort. “It got very nasty. Police were called. There were racist slurs.”

Students like Ferman don’t think it’s the student government’s role to take sides on political issues. “I think students have every right to speak up when they feel student dollars are promoting hate and a toxic atmosphere on campus,” says Ferman. Since the 1980s, student unions have been growing in power. They take money from undergraduates every year, which is charged separate from but alongside tuition, and they’re supposed to work for students. Some of that cash funds services, such as health and dental coverage, and student athletics. But much of it goes to advocacy and clubs students may find offensive. “They’d taken very controversial stances on what to fund in pro-life versus pro-choice issues, on Tamil issues going on in Sri Lanka. On every worldwide issue, they’d taken a position,” Ferman says of the YFS, which operates with a $2-million budget. They rarely take the position he would take.

The Canadian Federation of Students—an umbrella organization for student unions—has been heavily criticized for rash advocacy using student funds. The national organization, with its provincial subsidiaries, lobbies on behalf of 600,000 student members across Canada. These “members,” who automatically gain that status if their student union is a member organization, each pay $4.01 per semester to the CFS. In 2010, that came to $3.7 million in membership fee revenue—money used to fund the not-for-profit’s advocacy work. Students also pay an average of $4 per semester to be members of their provincial CFS. That’s before student union fees, which average out at around $30 per student, depending on the school. CFS national chairperson David Molenhuis acknowledges that some of the national campaigns, such as its current effort to fight the Canadian Blood Services’ decision to ban gay men from donating blood, are hot issues—but he doesn’t think they’re controversial. “They attempt to address head-on issues that perhaps college and university administrators don’t feel comfortable addressing,” he says. Some students also feel uncomfortable with their fees going to such politically sensitive issues.

For example, last June, the CFS wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty joining the cry for a public inquiry into the “unprecedented curtailment of civil liberties” that took place at the G20. “The federation stands up for the rights of students to participate and to assemble publicly and to participate in demonstrations,” said the letter. “We defend the rights of students to mobilize in public, and the G20 is no exception.”

Some students at the University of Ottawa were upset to learn that not only does the CFS take a political stand on the G20, their own student union spent at least $1,000 to rent a coach bus to shuttle about 50 protesters to Toronto during the G20. Student Peter Flynn, who also heads up the University of Ottawa Campus Conservatives, blasted the expenditure as a “blatant misuse” of student fees. “I highly doubt that every single student who has to pay those fees would be happy to know their money was being spent to send a few individuals to protest for the weekend,” Flynn told the Ottawa Citizen.

York student Gregory Kay was also irked by his student union’s support for G20 protests. The YFS and the student union at the University of Toronto co-sponsored “Toronto vs. the G20: a teach-in.” Class included Black Bloc tactics, which ended up seeing storefronts and public property smashed during the summit in downtown Toronto. “That’s something most students don’t believe in at all,” says Kay, who is the business representative for the YFS board of directors. “Most students aren’t anti-capitalist. They’re not interested in civil disobedience.”

Of course, if students are unhappy with their student government, they aren’t doing much to change it. While voter turnout tends to be higher when contentious issues can be resolved with a ballot, the average voter turnout sits at between 25 and 30 per cent. Many students see student government as too divisive—or too inflexible—to even bother running. Ferman, for one, considered running for a seat on the executive in 2009, but couldn’t put his academic career on hold for a year as the bylaws dictate. He ran for—and won—a seat on the board of directors instead.

“It’s an interesting dichotomy—that the student president isn’t even a student,” he says. “There are lots of inherent problems with the organization, but the lack of flexibility is a major one.” In late August 2010, the university’s ombudsman released a report saying the student union’s electoral process needed a massive makeover, making recommendations Ferman believes might one day legitimize the organization. “Now the onus is on the student federation to take some of these recommendations to heart.”

Photo: Christinne Muschi/Reuters

Crown withdraws charges over lack of police warrant

The Crown has dropped charges against about 100 people arrested during a police raid at the University of Toronto during the G20 summit.

Police entered the Koffler Student Centre and the Graduate Students’ Union facilities back in June without a warrant (whoopsies), and arrested a number of activists after discovering several “weapons of opportunity.” These weapons included rocks, bricks and sharpened sticks, which—yes—are fairly ubiquitous, but call me cynical if I don’t believe the GSU had planned a sort of hut-building orienteering exercise for out-of-towners during the G20 summit weekend. The activists, many of whom were from Quebec, later accused police of profiling them because of their province of origin.

For all of our coverage of this story, please click here.

In any case, the Crown has withdrawn the charges since police didn’t have a warrant for the raid. According to police spokesperson Meaghan Gray, the police didn’t believe they needed one, citing “reasonable and probable grounds” for the arrests.

This incident is one just among a slew of G20 humiliations on all sides of the debate, including gross overspending ($334,000 bill for sun screen, bug spray and hand sanitizer, for example), vandalism of public property, mass detention of peaceful protesters, and even a police officer threatening the arrest of a woman blowing bubbles.

But why the GSU thought it a good idea to turn its gym into a makeshift hostel during the hyped-up G20 summit, especially when the campus was pretty much shut down, is beyond me. Why the police decided to raid the area without a warrant, however, also leaves me scratching my head. Unfortunately, neither scenario is surprising.

Photo: Police car set on fire by G20 rioters at Bay and King

Still more questions than answers

Early Sunday morning (or late Saturday night–depending on perspective) police raided the offices and space of the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) at the University of Toronto. They arrested approximately 70 activists who were billeted there, using the GSU’s pub and small gymnasium as temporary accommodations for the G20 summit protests. Along with the visitors, police arrested Daniel Vandervoot, the GSU’s External Commissioner, and another executive who is as yet unidentified. Thus far they have not yet been released from custody.

The GSU has issued a press release condemning the arrests and they are supported in a similar statement by other student groups and by Canadian Union of Public Employees. This is essentially the same group of organizations that opposed campus closure in the first instance and which defied it by maintaining their own operations to the greatest extent possible.

Anton Neschadim is an Executive-At-Large with the GSU and he has the unenviable task, at present, of fielding inquiries from the media, from university administration, and from distressed friends and family members of those detained. Anton stresses that he was not on site for the arrests and was not responsible for coordinating the billeting of visiting activists, but with the two executives who were responsible still in police custody he was willing to answer some questions for us.

In their press release, the GSU “categorically denies any involvement in any undemocratic activity.” This seems a vague claim, so I asked Anton to clarify. He says “we did not provide the use of our space for any kind of illegal, undemocratic activity.” Although not blind to the possibility that one or more guests of the GSU might have committed some crime during the protests, Anton states that there is currently no evidence of this.

The GSU took steps to acquire signed waivers from all their guests. So there is, somewhere, a reasonable list of who was staying there. Unfortunately police took these documents with them when they raided the space and so that information is unavailable. Anton states that guests of the GSU would have been people from the student movement, and that some collaboration with the Toronto Community Mobilization Network was part of this arrangement.

The worst case scenario, naturally, would be if those responsible for any of the violence in Toronto were using the GSU offices as a staging ground–either as invited guests or else by mingling with them. Clearly police are attempting to convey this idea and raided the space on that theory. They describe “weapons of opportunity” in the form of bricks and sharpened sticks, as well as black clothing found on site. Anton points out, quite rightly, that these objects are fairly ubiquitous. The GSU has sticks for their picketing signs on hand and there are bricks and stones all over the U of T campus. The suggestion that there is something inherently suspicious in owning a black t-shirt is too absurd to even engage with it.

What if, despite all this, one or more GSU guests really are guilty of something violent? Anton confronts this possibility head on. “We’re really not responsible for any individual’s actions. Steps were taken but we’re not police. The type of accommodation we provided was for allies and friendly individuals and organizations that we commonly work with.” He likens the GSU’s relationship to their guests as similar to that of any hotel or hostel. And while that may be a little disingenuous it does raise an interesting point. Everyone from outside Toronto who was here this past weekend was surely staying somewhere. Are the friends and family members of every outside visitor made personally responsible for their actions simply by giving them a place to sleep?

To their credit, the university administration seems to be adopting a “wait and see” approach to these arrests, and is not willing to condemn the GSU simply for hosting guests in its space. While understandably very concerned, Anton reports that the university is still “gathering facts and information around what happened” and is in close communication with the GSU. Anton also states that the university was informed the GSU would be billeting people, as it has done in the past for similar events and occasions.

Looking at the arrests as an outside observer, it’s hard to agree with demands that “all arrested activists be released.” No one is currently in a position to know what charges may be laid against the guests of the GSU, and it may indeed be the case that someone was involved in genuinely criminal acts. But it’s also obvious that even if this were true, it would be only a few out of the 70 or so arrested on site who fall into this category. Most (if not all) were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, yet for the right reasons.

It may fly in the face of the “arrest ‘em all!” mentality that has pervaded the media in wake of some truly regrettable violence on the streets of Toronto, but the mass arrests at the GSU offices should be a reminder to everyone that Canadian law does not promote guilt by association. While the GSU may have been inviting problems by hosting friends and like-minded activists for this event, they hardly become guilty by extension even if someone did something criminal and stupid elsewhere in the city that day, and neither do the other activists who were arrested on site with them. As more news develops around these arrests, it should prompt some tough questions about just how much freedom we are willing to surrender in the name of security.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Sometimes, even peaceful protest isn’t the answer

There are several ways one could have gone about making a point regarding this weekend’s G20 summit in Toronto. Some opted to break windows and throw feces—not so subtle. Others selected arson as their method of choice—a brilliant (excuse the pun) way to illuminate (excuse again) their serious socio-economic concerns. But the majority chose “peaceful protest.” They gathered at Queen’s Park, chanted and held signs, and marched through the streets of Toronto, calling for free tuition, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and, most collectively, for G20 leaders to go home.

For complete coverage click here

Yet to me, the futility was obvious. Don’t get me wrong; I recognize the value of the right to protest. And I, too, was outraged at the $1 billion security bill, the evacuation of University of Toronto residences, the security fence and “fake lake.” But a protest—peaceful or otherwise—was not, in this case, an effective way to call attention to frivolous G20 measures. If everyone, and I mean everyone, had stayed home drinking tea on Saturday and Sunday, the message would have been way more effective (there’s that word again) than 10,000 protesters taking to the street. What better way to “humiliate the apparatus” (to borrow a phrase from the anarchists) than to really demonstrate the uselessness of a billion dollar security fleet?

Of course, no such concerted effort was made. While protesters spent time dousing their handkerchiefs in vinegar and silkscreening “F*** the G20” on their brightly-coloured tees, the effectiveness of a strategic, silent protest seemed to evade most of the outraged. I should apologize, though—I haven’t completely shaken the youthful naïveté that a protest should be about actually getting something done. But I’m working on it. After all, this weekend confirmed—at least to me—that demonstrations are more about hearing yourself than actually being heard.

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On Saturday afternoon, I went to check out the Canadian Federation of Student’s Student Feeder March. Like an idiot, I thought the march was to demonstrate Canadian students’ objection to the G20 summit, specifically regarding the evacuation of U of T’s downtown campus. Obviously I’m new, because I was surprised when I was treated to a megaphone lecture about Indigenous rights, Stephen Harper’s maternal health plan, and the evils of corporate America.  After the obligatory “Education is a Right!” chant and a few dozen “Shame!’s,” we were off.

The group marched through the spitting rain, east from Bloor and Spadina towards the desolate U of T campus. There were a few hundred students, and no police escort. Despite the grey skies and murky ground runoff, energy was high. The chanting was constant (and, I’ll admit, quite catchy). As students turned onto U of T’s closed campus they got louder. “Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? OUR STREETS!” Followed by, “This is what democracy looks like!” which evolved into a confusing “This is what democracy smells like!” And, of course, it wouldn’t be a student march without, “We gotta beat, back, the corporate attack.”

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When I was in Grade Six I learned about the standard, five-paragraph argumentative essay. “You need a thesis,” said my teacher from front of the elementary school classroom. “One point that you will argue,” she continued. “The rest of the essay will support this point.”

Could you have two theses, I wondered? Three? Four?  Like most eager 11-year-olds, I wanted to impress my teacher. “Just one,” Ms. Levitt reminded the class. “A focused argument will always be stronger.”

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The CFS placards on Saturday afternoon read, “Keep Education Public!” But to the uniformed bystander, the group could have been marching about anything. Native land rights? Corporate greed? A woman’s right to choose? While marchers took great pride in reminding spectators that, “The people, united, will never be defeated,” they really should have kept in mind that a message, diluted, is not properly entreated. (See? I can rhyme too!)

It just got worse when we reached Queen’s Park, the designated protest site. I saw signs about occupation in India, a group for animal liberation, and a slew of unionized men and women advocating for workers’ rights. Okay, I get it; I saw the “Long Live Socialism” sign. The idea was undoubtedly to highlight the causes that could have done with some diverted G20 cash. But as long as protesters were present, there needed to be police. And when store windows were crashed, riot cops had to be brought in. The Toronto Transit Commission lost revenue because of afternoon system closures and someone’s gonna have to pay for that damaged public property.

I’m not saying we should be silent on the issues that matter most. But ironically, silence might have been the way to go on this most important matter. Imagine how silly it would have looked if the feds spent a billion dollars on riot gear, bringing in the RCMP, army, private security and swarms of police on bikes, motorcycles, and horseback, and the downtown core turned out to be empty as air. The Black Bloc certainly made things worse for everyone, but even the “peaceful protesters” weren’t really helping their cause.

I would hope students, as the “bright thinkers of tomorrow” would lead the way by initiating constructive means of protest. Or, at the very least, come with a focused, coherent message. I wasn’t beaming with pride when I spotted student leaders amid a mob standoff with riot police, nor was I pleased to accompany a student march rallying for a mess of different causes, only some of which I supported.

Police certainly overreacted, peaceful protesters were detained, media was arrested, and rioters wreaked havoc. So, until next time, G20, I’ll be drinking my tea.

Update: At least 70 protesters arrested

Early Sunday, police raided a building on the University of Toronto campus. At least 50 people, not believed to be students, have been arrested and charges are pending. (Update: The number of arrested has risen to at least 70.)

A spokesman for the Integrated Security Unit says officers have found a cache of “street-type weaponry” such as bricks. Dozens of officers were combing bushes and garbage cans, collecting articles of black clothing

A G20 demonstration turned violent Saturday when a peaceful protest was infiltrated by anarchists who deployed the so-called Black Bloc tactic. The latest arrests brings the number of people in detention to more than 500.

The Canadian Press

Images of violence, as striking as they may be, are not the whole story

I’m standing next to a nice young woman at the corner of Pape and Eastern as she calls her friend to explain how she is almost 100 per cent sure that she is going to be arrested, along with the 80 or so people still gathered with her on the street corner. I am certainly included in that number. She is trying hard to sound calm about it but there’s an edge to her voice. It’s really hard to know what is about to happen next. But I agree with her. It looks awfully likely that I’m about to get arrested.

Related: Violence and chaos in Toronto

Campus under siege

Saturday morning I started my day by addressing a room full of student leaders in Calgary. That’s an entirely different story, but my plane landed in Toronto around 9:50pm and from that point forward I’ve been on a mission to get the story of the G20 from the ground level. In my original coverage of the G20 I was most concerned about the “designated” protest site smack dab in the middle of University of Toronto. That site was overrun by police earlier in the day and I wanted to see what it looks like afterward. So that’s where I started.

Just north of Bloor I begin to feel the heavy police presence in the city. They’re traveling routinely in squads of eight. But as an upstanding citizen I figure the easiest way to get started is simply to ask them where stuff is happening. They point me at Allan Gardens, where protesters established a tent city earlier in the day. I thank them and make a note to check it out. Less than five feet away a helpful stranger named Kevin gives me the real story. The next place to be is outside the temporary detention center where those already arrested are being held. And boy is he right–but it will take me a while to get there.

Kevin is a part-time faculty member at Concordia University. He came down to Toronto for the G20 protests and to see his grandmother. These two activities are unrelated. He got his start protesting in Quebec City in 2001 and has stayed interested since. His opinion is that police have done an excellent job of separating and dispersing crowds. He says this with an air of appreciation. There are rules to this game and this far, at least, the police are playing within them. As a result things have stayed somewhat disorganized. But he also feels that the heavy police presence is beyond anything that could be called reasonable and that it’s provocative in and of itself.

As I’m talking with Kevin, another squad of officers have approached from the south and they are escorting a couple of young guys who look awfully unhappy. The two squads merge and they joke about the trouble makers they’ve caught. Now we’re surrounded by sixteen officers in full riot gear and the new ones are eying us suspiciously. We excuse ourselves and cross the street. I can already see Kevin’s point. I haven’t done a thing wrong and I’m already intimidated.

Queens Park north is a mess but it’s no more of a mess than I’ve seen many times. All sorts of things are organized in that park and clean up is always incomplete. I survey the campus for signs of damage and find nothing to speak of. From what I can tell the University of Toronto escaped relatively unscathed. But that doesn’t mean the administration was wrong to close the campus. Even on a Saturday buildings, staff, and any students who would have been around could easily have been caught up in the chaos of the day. Based on events thus far, the university seems to be vindicated.

Just about everyone has moved on from the site but an enterprising man with a shopping cart is collecting bottles and cans to return to the beer store. He’s all smiles and says it’s his second load and that he’s made a hundred bucks today. It’s nice that at least someone is benefiting from this and it’s a reminder that for most people the demonstrations are half political statement and half street party–one where they tend to leave their empties behind. The few images of violence, as striking as they may be, are not the true story. They are just a small part of it.

I realize that if I’m going to find the action it’ll be at Pape and Eastern, where the detention center is located. That’s quite a ways away and transit is questionable. Fortunately I’ve got my bike. The ride across the city at night is hardly safe but there’s a lot of people doing it. Dissent in Toronto generally travels on two wheels. Now I’m getting the nod from folks on the street who accept that I’m out to make a statement just like they are. As I get near the site I manage to join a small band of other cyclists. It’s nice to have some company. There’s safety–or at least a greater sense of it–in numbers.

We approach the detention center from an odd direction and it briefly seems as though no one is there. The site is huge and based in an old film studio. We find one young woman, all alone, who has staked out an entrance to the facility. Her name is Caroline and she’s from the University of Manitoba. Her boyfriend was arrested earlier in the day and she’s come to rescue him. She’s joking, of course, but there isn’t much else for her to do. She claims they were protesting peacefully and based on her views I have no trouble believing it. She’s upset at the violence and believes that it has “delegitimized the actual protest.” She finds the police presence to be “insane” but she has no desire to clash with them. She’s quite glad some company has arrived. On a dark night, in the middle of an industrial district, a little solidarity is a good thing.

As it turns out there’s actually a party in full swing just down the street and we haven’t quite found it yet. Another group on foot tromps confidently past us and we follow them. There’s a band with a tuba on the street corner and some dancing. People are having a good time. It’s 1am and we’re making a whole lot of noise. There’s no denying that. But otherwise there’s nothing threatening or destructive about the group.

Officer in plain clothes tried to monitor 10 G20 protesters from the student paper’s office

If you are planning to protest the G20 meeting being held in Toronto, and you want to make plans from the Ryerson University Student Campus Centre, be warned that the RCMP may be watching you. Late Wednesday afternoon, officer Leslie Tull, who was wearing plain clothes, was using the office of student paper the Eyeopener, to observe 10 protesters in the student run building. According to the paper, Tull “refused requests to leave while asking several people in the office if they knew how many exits were in the building and if the protesters could be kicked out.” After Eyeopener staff contacted security,students’ union president Toby Whitfield had Tull escorted off campus.

Students, faculty sign letter calling for the university to reverse its decision to close down over international summit

Despite plans to shut down the university to accommodate security concerns during the G20 summit later this month, University of Toronto student unions are vowing to keep services for students running. Among the services being interrupted are child care, health care for international students, the student-run food and clothing bank, and discounted TTC Metropass sales. The University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) plans to maintain services “at the best of their capabilities in the face of security restrictions”

The students’ union has support from the Canadian Union of Public Employees that represents UTSU’s staff, although employees have been given the option to stay home. “We are opposed to this unilateral decision that prevents us from serving our members and doing our jobs,” Tanya Speight of CUPE, said. “We hope that the University is at least negotiating with police to minimise aggressive and violent tactics such as the misuse of sonic cannons,” Daniel Vandervoort, of the U of T grad students’ union added.

U of T vice-president and provost Cheryl Misak announced in late May that the St. George campus would be closing from June 24 through the 27, because the designated protest site is located at Queen’s Park.

The student unions, a number of other campus groups, and several faculty members have signed an open letter calling on the university to reverse its decision and keep the school open. “The University of Toronto, as a place of higher learning, should be encouraging dialogue . . . Instead, administrators are prohibiting access to the campus, stifling dialogue and fostering a climate of fear,” the letter reads. The letter also claims that students and staff were not consulted in the decision shut down the campus: “This decision places an unacceptable and unnecessary burden on students, instructors and researchers, forcing them to postpone their research, alter their course and exam schedules, and even abandon their homes.”

Staff and students banned from campus

The University of Toronto will clear out its downtown campus for four days in June because of an influx of anarchists security concerns.

The campus is in close proximity to Queen’s Park, the official protest site of the G20 summit, so university officials have decided to ban staff and students from the St.George campus to make sure none of their own get involved. Students in residences will be relocated, exams will be moved and events on campus will be cancelled.

“We just want to make sure that our staff, faculty and students are safe during that period,” Laurie Stephens, U of T’s director of media relations told the Globe and Mail. “We’re going to try to disrupt them as little as possible.”

Students will now have to commute to join the “humiliate the security apparatus” street party, hosted by Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance (SOAR).

Way to make things difficult, U of T.

-Photo by bensonkua